World Wide Beauty

As more of us shop online, we should not underestimate the power of the Internet to introduce us to new brands and products. In many cases, we no longer need to try before we buy and seem happy to read about products, search for them, and buy them online sight unseen. Beauty online is a booming business with an unbelievable growth rate.

But do brand owners see it as a valuable promotional resource for their brand, and another viable retail outlet? Are they concerned with how to position their beauty products for both an online and in-store audience? Does online selling increase or decrease the power and importance of packaging design? Are beauty brands using packaging in a different way to meet different needs?

Branded sites

Most beauty brands have their own website. Some may argue that, particularly for the more high-end and luxury brands, that the availability afforded by the Internet may have taken away some brand exclusivity. But, on the flip side, it has also brought brands much closer to us.

Brands such as Jo Malone, a brand that limits its retail outlets, has cleverly retained a sense of exclusivity while using the Internet to full advantage to promote the brand to a wider geographical audience. Its website, www.jomalone.co.uk, is beautifully designed in a classic way to reflect the ethos of their product. The products are exquisitely photographed and represented and we are shown how our goods will be packaged and delivered to us.

In contrast, The Body Shop is not using the web as a sales outlet but as another medium for educating the consumer about its philosophy and brand development and, above all, to showcase, rather than sell, new products. Essentially the website — www.bodyshop.com — is designed to drive foot traffic into the store.

Beauty sites

But probably the biggest growth area is that of the dedicated beauty sites. There has always been a good transfer of brands between the United States and the UK and now sites such as www.lookfantastic.com, www.beautyadore.com and www.HQHair.com keep us abreast of what is new and popular on both sides of the pond. However, accessing European products or beauty news has, in the past, been more difficult. We all know how to find the European giants such as Chanel or L’Oréal and they are, of course, easy to ‘Google’. We can even track down some of the smaller brands such as Caudalie and Lavera now that they have infiltrated into our stores, but sites such as www.beautycentereurope.com are invaluable for those of us wanting to learn more about country specific brands or wanting to try something new; particularly with more countries joining the EU.

However, what all of these dedicated beauty sites have homed in on is our need for knowledge. All of the sites mentioned have dedicated what’s new sections, most of which update daily or weekly and probably keep us more successfully up-to-date with new product launches and developments than if we were going in-store. It is immediate information that we can access anytime, anywhere. In addition, it is often hard in-store to tell if a new brand has been added on shelf or a new product to a range.

Real Packaging vs. Virtual Packaging

Which brings us to the question of whether we prefer to shop online or in person and what is motivating us? We have not looked at the statistics but the growth of beauty sites undoubtedly underlines the demand for this type of brand relationship. It does not seem imperative to try before we buy, but we do like to see what we are getting and we know that how things look are a key, if not the key, motivator at time of purchase. Because there is no opportunity to sample or touch, packaging design online must surely be one of the most important and tangible product descriptors. We have previously looked at the power of copy in design and, although most beauty sites describe their products with both a written description and a photograph, we must not forget that the Internet relies primarily on our desire for, and understanding of, the visual.

For example, at the time of writing, www.beautycentereurope.com had posted a plethora of new products, one of which was Apeiron Bees Wax Skin Cream. The product is posted with a short product description and a thumbnail color JPEG of the product. The description claims that the product derives from a 16th Century recipe from the island of Gotland in Sweden and is a skin salve using beeswax. The black and yellow packaging with a lid in the shape of a hexagon, or honeycomb, perfectly marries product and packaging and, for a product such as this, does not lose anything of the sense of the product by being promoted online.

New Products Online

What is making us buy online? Is it the love of the website or the love of the products? Sephora boasts a website that feels like you are perusing your favorite beauty counter. The site — www.sephora.com — provides regular updates on tips and trends, interviews with experts, as well as showcasing what is new in store and what can be bought online. It all fosters a sense of community. Sephora cleverly creates demand and desire by flagging some products as ‘New! Only at Sephora’, such as Lola Cosmetics Butter up lip treatment duos – traditional red packaging with white Lola branding. Again, as with Apeiron Bees Wax Sin Cream, and most of the beauty products and sites that we have found on the web, there is a lengthy description of the product benefit but this product more than any others shows us how design (if shot properly) can win through online. The 2-in-1 lip butter and gloss is packaged like a traditional lipstick (for the lip butter) on the top half with a bottle and brush on the bottom for the gloss. We can perfectly see what the product is and what it does with or without the product description.

I would suggest that, in many cases, the design of the website can be just as important in the selling as the design of the product itself, particularly for sites such as www.myvanitycase.com, which are purely an online resource. The design of the site not only far outweighs others but it also offers us a global product selection, which is hard to find elsewhere. Like a beautifully glossy magazine, the site teases us in with sections labelled exotic, fragrant, romantic, etc. New to www.myvanitycase.com within the past few weeks has been the young Australian, all-natural brand Shizen. Meaning nature in Japanese, Shizen mixes the old and new and East and West influences by using apothecary style brown glass jars with modern brushed silver labelling and a black rose brand mark. Its ‘Rose Hydrating Mist’ is similar to other products, but the design of the site and the way the product is portrayed equals ultimate desirability and the exclusive nature of shopping via www.myvanitycase.com does give the product added cachet.

Connection

In very general terms, we are seeing  that consumers love the freedom and discovery that advancing technology affords in terms of connecting with the beauty community. It is a functional connection but one that, because we are contradictory by nature, we will no doubt continue to offset with a need for a more humanized, individual and emotional connection. Therefore, we will probably continue to shop for beauty both online (functional) and in-person (emotional) as both retail fixes will fulfill both forms of connection. But, above all, we should never forget that packaging is the key consumer touch-point and that relevant and inspirational packaging design will always balance its functional and emotional role to connect with the consumer via whatever medium and on whatever level the consumer desires.

About the Author

Jonathan Ford is an award-winning designer and creative partner for Pearlfisher —  a London and New York design consultancy.  

Pearlfisher’s award winning work in the food, drink and luxury markets includes clients such as LVMH, ABSOLUT Vodka and Unilever.

More information: [email protected].